Search strategy and study selection Studies were included in the review if: 1. GW-572016 supplier a cross-sectional or longitudinal design was used;   2. the study population concerned patients

with somatic diseases or complaints at inclusion;   3. illness perceptions were measured using a questionnaire that contained at least four dimensions of the CSM-model of self-regulation such as identity of the illness, beliefs about cause of the illness and about how long it will last, beliefs about personal consequences of the condition, and/or beliefs about personal control; and,   4. the study used work participation as an outcome of interest, including employment status (employed versus not employed, sick listed or work disabled), return to work or days absent from work.   In the first round, two Selleckchem HKI 272 investigators independently reviewed all titles and abstracts of the identified publications and excluded all studies that did not fulfill one or more selection criteria. If the abstract

was non-informative but potentially relevant, the full text article was read. In the second round, full text articles were ordered and studies were selected if they fulfilled all four criteria. Selection was performed independently by two reviewers. Data extraction and study quality Data extraction was performed by one reviewer and checked by another and was performed using a checklist that included items on social demographic characteristics of the study population (age, gender, diagnosis or somatic diseases or complaints and employment status), sample size, outcome measures concerning PCI-34051 supplier work participation, duration of follow-up and results of the most important illness perception categories reported in the studies obtained from the descriptive analyses or regression analyses. Study quality was independently assessed by two reviewers using a methodology

checklist from NICE (National Montelukast Sodium Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) adapted from Hayden et al. (2006) to assess whether key study information was reported and the risk of bias was minimized (scoring yes, no or unclear), based on the following topics: (a) study sample representativeness (description key characteristics, source population, sampling and recruitment methods), (b) loss to follow up/response rate (description of: rate of drop outs and reasons, loss to follow up and reasons, differences in key characteristics), (c) measurement of illness perceptions/dimensions (valid and well defined, used well-developed measurement tool to measure factor of interest), (d) measurement of work participation (well defined, methods for assessing outcome are valid and reliable) (e) accounting for potential confounders (confounders are described, measured and accounted for in analyses). The quality scores will be presented and discussed separately. A full description of all items is available from the authors. Only items fulfilling a criterion received a plus (“yes”) score.